Follow the money No. 121 Decline and fall of the American labor movement? http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/sol-sanders/ Longer ago than I care to remember, I discussed “the decline of the American labor movement” with an old friend, a high AFL/CIO official, veteran of many a bitter “organizing campaign”, at its palatial 16th Street Washington headquarters. [Transparency alert: My […]
The Israeli Arab conundrum
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2024
Because of the endless focus on the so-called peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the Arab citizens of the Jewish state often get overlooked. The issue periodically reawakens when an event is deemed newsworthy by the press. Ironically, though the Israeli media is usually sympathetic to this and any other “downtrodden minority” in the country, the events that bring the Israeli Arabs into the headlines usually involve some form of treasonous activity on their part.
This does not cause left-leaners to rethink their positions, however. On the contrary, if anything, it serves to reinforce their stance.
So, for example, when it turns out that an Arab citizen of the state has knowingly and willingly driven a suicide bomber to his destination at an Israeli restaurant, or when an Arab Knesset Member openly sides with Hezbollah in Syria or proudly sails on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza, enlightened pundits place the blame squarely on Israel’s shoulders.
The indictments coming from the Center and soft Left always read the same: If only the government had cultivated the Arabs in Israel’s midst, they would have become loyal citizens. If only the government were to provide the Arab municipalities with the proper budgets, they would have great sewage systems, smoothly paved roads, regular garbage collections and prettily painted playgrounds — all of which would turn them into happy campers, rather than a disgruntled fifth column.
The idea behind this and all liberal logic is that if certain people behave badly toward others, there must be a deep-seated reason which is somebody else’s fault. The solution, then, is not to punish the perpetrators, or even demand they take responsibility for their actions, but rather to understand the source of the personal, financial, social, racial, sexual problems or other factor that elicited those actions — and then to try and force the powers-that-be to “fix” the factor. Is it any wonder this never works?
It boggles the mind how otherwise intelligent people — as the Jews are purported to be — are capable of cleaving to the same old cause-and-effect claptrap, no matter how often it backfires. Basing policies on false premises is as good a recipe for success as the moral relativism that so often accompanies it.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-politicians-weigh-in-on-islam-s-role-in-germany-a-837563.html
Why Islam Is an Integral Part of Germany
A Commentary by Bernhard Zand
German politicians have lately shown a penchant for weighing in on whether Islam belongs to Germany. A clear understanding of history, however, is often missing from the debate. In recent days, two prominent German Christians offered up their thoughts to the country’s Muslims on their search for identity. Markus Söder, the finance minister of the state of Bavaria, surprised an audience of Turkish immigrants by saying that Islam is an “integral part of Bavaria.”
Then, German President Joachim Gauck told the influential weekly Die Zeit that he shares the intentions of his predecessor, former President Christian Wulff. Gauck slightly re-formulated Wulff’s most famous sentence by saying: “The Muslims who live here belong to Germany.”That now makes five such prominent voices weighing in on the ongoing debate. Wulff, from whom Gauck has now distanced himself, was first. He said: “By now, Islam also belongs to Germany.”
Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich contradicted him, saying: “That Islam is part of Germany is a fact that cannot be proven by history.” He said that Germany’s identity has been “shaped by Christianity and the Enlightenment.” Then, senior parliamentary conservative Volker Kauder maintained that “Islam is not a part of our tradition and identity.”
So which is it? Who or what belongs to Germany? Islam? The Enlightenment? Muslims? Christianity?
Fundamental Lack of Education
When Konrad Adenauer, in his first major speech as chancellor in 1949, committed himself to the “spirit of Western Christian culture,” not much of that culture remained. The Western world, led by Germany, had managed to destroy the achievements of centuries of humanism and the Enlightenment in just a few years.
Muslims in Germany, many of whom have immigrated from the Orient, know that; most of them have studied at German schools or universities. And it surprises them how men like Kauder, Friedrich and Gauck can so elegantly overlook the dark sides of Occident, while at the same time claiming the bright sides for themselves alone. The Western world, says Aiman Mazyek, the head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, stands on “Muslim, Eastern legs.”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/jihads-willing-executioners?f=puball Quietly, behind the scenes, the Muslim Brotherhood is enforcing censorship of all U.S. government training about Islam and the forces of Islamic jihad. Under the co-opted direction of National Security Council official, Quintan Wiktorowicz, key Cabinet Departments, including Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State are purging their curriculum materials of any references about Islam […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/dont-overlook-the-iran-al-qaeda-connection The alliance between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaeda is considered taboo in many Western national security circles. Regardless, the connection between our Shi’ite adversaries in Tehran and Sunni enemies in al-Qaeda is long and extensive. As we move forward into 2012, with a potential nuclear crisis on the horizon, it is important […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/canada-leads-the-way-on-the-pipeline-no-brainer “Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No Mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.” That was Canada’s Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, speaking on January 9, 2012 and he might have been saying the […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/08/a-lawsuit-only-jihadists-could-love/ Recently the mainstream media made much of revelations that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had been conducting surveillance of Muslims in New York and New Jersey, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim Students Association. After an investigation cleared the NYPD of any wrongdoing and established the complete legality of the program, […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/06/citizens_united_becomes_the_lefts_all_purpose_excuse.html Tuesday night, watching the election returns from Wisconsin was an object lesson in a few areas. On both CNN and MSNBC, the pundits and hosts proved they cannot divide. Flashed on their screens were comparisons of total spending on the governor’s race that showed $45 million in total for Scott Walker, and but $9 […]
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2012/06/07/the-slick-genius-of-slick-willie/ “When your enemy is angry, irritate him.” -Sun Tzu There are differing versions, even different attributions, of that dictum, probably because of its timeless truth. An angry enemy makes mistakes. An annoyed and angry enemy will flip out. And nobody was better at annoying the angry than Bill Clinton — even […]
http://pjmedia.com/blog/forty-years-later-kim-phuc-and-her-north-vietnamese-enemies/?print=1
Meet the girl in the picture considered iconic for all the wrong reasons.
“It is wonderful that Kim’s existence has become so much happier. But it is up to us to draw the correct conclusions from her story: what was the real atrocity here, and who were the perpetrators?Kim is glad to be alive now, but she describes her attitude growing up in Communist-dominated Vietnam this way: I got burned by napalm, and I became a victim of war … but growing up then, I became another kind of victim. … I wished I died in that attack with my cousin, with my south Vietnamese soldiers. From her telling phrase “my south Vietnamese soldiers,” it is clear that Kim does not see them as the villains of the piece.”
If you are of a certain age, you almost certainly remember Kim Phuc vividly, even though you may not know her name. She was the nine-year-old South Vietnamese girl who was burned by napalm on June 8, 1972, and whose image in a prize-winning photo taken by South Vietnamese AP photographer Nick Ut [1] became an iconic and influential force that helped end the war.
The picture of Kim running down a road near the village of Trang Bang screaming in agony and terror, her clothes torn off and her body badly burned, shocked and outraged an America that had become profoundly weary of the war and its horrors. The photo was Picasso’s Guernica [2] come to life, even more horrific because it was not just an artist’s imaginative and stylized rendition of the bombing’s effects, but the real thing.
As familiar as the photo has become, the story behind it is less so. For example, if the introductory paragraph of this essay had read: “She was the nine-year-old girl who was burned by napalm dropped by American forces in South Vietnam,” how many readers would have caught the error?
